Just Published: Intercultural Ministry: Hope for a Changing World
Two years ago in connection with the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York City, Ann Smith, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, and I gave a presentation at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine on She Lives! Sophia Wisdom Works in the World, my book in which they are featured. After our presentation Grace and I began talking about collaborating on Intercultural Ministry. It’s exciting now to have the published book!
Many thanks to Grace Ji-Sun Kim, my co-editor, to Dwight N. Hopkins, who wrote the Foreword, and to all the contributors for their collaboration. It has been rewarding to work with these visionary people. I’m also indeed grateful to Colette Casburn Numajiri, one of the ministers in New Wineskins Feminist Ritual Community, for her encouragement and contributions to this project. Colette went with me on the adventure of visiting numerous churches in the Dallas area, trying to find intercultural congregations. Thanks also to Equity for Women in the Church, especially my co-chair Sheila Sholes-Ross, for living the vision of intercultural ministry, for enthusiastic support of this project, and for contributing to the book.
Intercultural Ministry: Hope for a Changing World is now available through Judson Press and through Amazon, where it’s been #1 New Release in Christian Leadership.
Book Description
Why are most churches still segregated by race and culture? Is it possible to build intercultural ministries today? What are the challenges of creating and maintaining these ministries? How do intercultural churches give equal power and privilege to each culture? How do they avoid assimilating minority cultures into dominant cultures? Intercultural Ministry explores these questions and more with chapters from a racially and denominationally diverse group of pastors, theologians, and teachers who reflect on their experiences and experiments in intercultural ministry. Contributors are Sheila Sholes-Ross, Christine Smith, Amy Butler, Karen Oliveto, Curtiss Paul DeYoung, Brad Braxton, Brandon Green, Daniel Hill, Angie Hong, Karen Hernandez-Granzen, Carlos Ruiz, Emily McGinley, Peter Ahn, Katie Mulligan, and David Hershey!
Editorial Reviews
“Replete with stories of struggle and testimonies of faith, this collection can instruct and inspire believers who seek more excellent ways for all peoples. In its purview the book embraces diverse cultures and individuals to offer grace, challenge, and healing.”—Phyllis Trible, Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature, Union Theological Seminary
“The ministers who wrote these chapters are intent on building intercultural communities that embody new forms of church and society. Sharing a common faith does not guarantee anything about common life, common worship, or common action. But with the creative, concerted, compassionate efforts reported here, we discover new ways to advance that work. This is a compelling resource for forward-looking congregations and students of ministry.” —Mary E. Hunt, Co-director, Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER)
“Buried deep in the subterranean recesses of this thoughtful, provoking, timely collection of essays representing the breadth of world Christianity is the fundamental, and ultimately transformative, not to mention far-reaching insight, that diversity, multiculturalism, inclusion, in and for theological education and ministry, are not enough. Their futures, and indeed the future of our planet, depend on the creation and nurture of intercultural competencies that are not only practical, but learned; critical but also hopeful; uncompromising, while being gracious; strategic, and at the same time tactical. This is a volume that will not only disturb but also comfort, disrupt as well as protect, both the faithful and the cynical, providing readers with ‘solid’ resources and ‘liquid’ perspectives for ministry and the living out of their lives—especially in these deeply troubled and troubling times. Intercultural Ministry is a must-read for all peoples of goodwill who desire the ‘creation of the fundamentally new that is also fundamentally better’ as they aspire to repair our broken world.” —Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, MDiv, PhD, Senior Director, Accreditation and Institutional Evaluation, The Association of Theological Schools, The Commission on Accrediting
“This impressive collection of essays gathers years of wisdom from seasoned pastoral leaders. By combining personal narrative, theological reflection on current events, and practical suggestions for the church, the authors offer abundant resources for pastors, scholars, and students engaged in the work of intercultural ministry. They do not sugarcoat the many challenges of this work in our time, but they do offer the outlines of hope for a more intercultural future.”—David H. Jensen, Academic Dean and Professor in the Clarence N. and Betty B. Freierson Distinguished Chair of Reformed Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
“In pulling together the fifteen essays that make up Intercultural Ministry: Hope for a Changing World, editors Grace Ji‐Sun Kim and Jann Aldredge‐Clanton have done a great service to congregational leaders seeking a faithful way forward in the midst of one of the defining challenges of our time—the fact that in a world of ever‐increasing mixing of races, ethnicities, and nationalities, the vast majority of churches remain stubbornly segregated. Acknowledging that creating intercultural communities is often a ‘disorienting, shocking, and at times, traumatic’ process that never occurs without conflict and never comes to completion, the authors clear away naiveté and dismiss simplistic answers, offering instead a vision that is honest, complex and nuanced enough to actually be helpful. Even while addressing the difficulties, the authors offer testimony to the transformative power of such communities along with a stirring reminder that these churches continue a story that began with Christianity’s first congregations, the power necessary to create them being inherent in our faith itself and the Spirit that gave it birth.” — Rev. LeDayne McLeese Polaski, Executive Director/Directora Ejecutiva ‐ BPFNA ~ Bautistas por la Paz
“Grace Ji‐Sun Kim and Jann Aldredge‐Clanton have done a phenomenal work as they gathered essays from a diverse group of religious leaders to discuss the creation and implementation of intercultural ministry in their communities. A copy of this masterpiece should be in every theologian’s library as a reference book which gives understanding to the importance of the creation of intercultural ministries as we attempt to live in our diverse communities which are constantly changing.” —Rev. Leslie Robin Harrison, Itinerant Elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
For those committed to reflect God’s diverse future today, Intercultural Ministry is an invaluable tool. What passes for multicultural church today is often a surface mix of people of different races and ethnicities, but they essentially share the same culture. This book challenges us to go deeper—too deep perhaps for some!—as it provides the theological and practical resources to move the church toward genuine interculturalism. It calls for openness on our part to the Spirit’s work to change the heart and soul of the church, and not just its face. —Al Tizon, Executive Minister of Serve Globally, Evangelical Covenant Church
“Creating and sustaining a ministry that embraces diversity within the leadership and the membership has been the great challenge of the church from its inception. This book is a much needed guideline on how to overcome those barriers.” —Marvin A. McMickle, PhD, President and Professor of Church Leadership, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Rev. Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim & Rev. Dr. Jann Aldredge-Clanton
Foreword: Rev. Dr. Dwight Hopkins
Part 1: Building Theological Foundations for Intercultural Churches
Chapter 1: Becoming the Beloved Community, by Rev. Dr. Amy Butler
Chapter 2: A Collective Amnesia: The Church and its Prophetic Call to Steward our Collective Memory, by Rev. Brandon Green
Chapter 3: Disrupting Babylon, by Rev. Emily McGinley
Chapter 4: Every Nation, Tribe, People, and Language: Building Intercultural Churches with the End in Sight, by Rev. Dr. Curtiss Paul DeYoung
Chapter 5: Embodying a Disruptive Journey: Pursuing Reconciliation in the Context of Intergenerational Trauma in the Body of Christ, by Rev. Carlos Ruiz
Part 2: Strategies for Building Intercultural Churches and Ministries
Chapter 6: Beyond Resurrection Sunday, by Rev. Sheila Sholes-Ross
Chapter 7: Pushing Boundaries in Baltimore: An Experiment in Radical Religious Openness, by Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton
Chapter 8: Laying a Foundation for a True and Viable Intercultural Church, by Rev. Christine A. Smith
Chapter 9: Just Power: 10 Principles for Building Intercultural Leadership Teams, by Rev. Dr. Daniel Hill
Chapter 10: Equals at the Table: Strengthening Our Identities to Engage with Others, by Angie Hong
Part 3: Future Possibilities of Intercultural Churches and Ministries
Chapter 11: Ministry at the Margins, by Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto
Chapter 12: New Wineskins, by Rev. Peter Ahn
Chapter 13: Long Thread, Lazy Girl, by Rev. Katie Mulligan
Chapter 14: Ministry on a University Campus: Intercultural Successes, Failures, and Hope for the Future, by Rev. David Hershey
Chapter 15: The Kin-dom Coming in the Joyful Worship of the God of All People, by Rev. Karen Hernandez-Granzen
Conclusion: Rev. Dr. Jann Aldredge-Clanton & Rev. Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim